SK Telecom's Big Hero

Vice Chairman Cho snags 2006 Techno CEO award for his role in reviving SKT

It is barely over a decade since Korea became a strong IT country in the world by commercializing the CDMA (code division multiple access) mobile communication technology for the first time in the mobile communication industry. The success led to turning around Korea from an IT import country to an IT exporting country thanks to the superb level of its CDMA communication technology.
Vice Chairman Cho Jung-nam of SK Telecom has been credited with making great contributions to the CDMA commercialization in the country, the job that carried a considerable risk as well as great advantage.
In 1995 he joined SK Telecom from SK Corp., in a big switch of job. He had been associated with petrochemical industry ever since he joined the Korea Oil Corp. in 1966 after graduating from Seoul National University with a degree in chemical engineering. His new job as head of the production department at the telecommunication company was to commercialize the CDMA mobile communication technology.
The daunting project was to develop a commercial digital cellular mobile communication service from the basic technology imported from the United States, which no country had succeeded in commercializing the technology at the time.
The project was nearly an impossible one because its core part was to change the analogue communication technology to digital technology, requiring the development of digital communication equipment and terminals, which was a daring venture which no one attempted before.
In November 1994, the project reached the experimental stages, but it was far from a full commercialization with the development of the exchange equipment and terminals yet to be completed, in addition to the work to make base stations suitable to the new technology and the construction of new exchange system, among others. The work involved night work by GTE engineers totaling some 30 and 50 SK Telecom engineers. They had to overcome cultural and language differences on the way to completing their assigned work which were only a few of the problems that had to be overcome.
It was left up to Manager Cho to have these professionals work together and he had to be like the conductor of a symphony orchestra. The manager's work reached a decisive moment when the top management had to decide on the question of the early investment of tens of billion won at the end of 1995 and he got the approval from the top management, which made the engineers to continue on with their jobs only, not bother with other intruding problems.
As a result of overcoming such hardships as those, the project finally succeeded with the CDMA commercial operations in Incheon and Bucheon from January 3, 1996, for the first time in the world. Korea became an exporter of IT products from an IT importer with an explosive growth in communication equipment production and terminals, in addition to the number of the mobile communication operators.
In 1996, exports of terminals amounted to $470,000, but it reached $24.6 billion in 2005, making Korea a leader in the wireless communication technology in the world.
The Information Communication Policy Institute, in its report entitled, "The economic effects of the communication service industry from 1995 to 1998,"said the industry's contribution to the real per capital income amounted to 7.84 percent and 12.8 percent of an incremental increase during the period, in addition to upgrading the productivity of other industries.
Vice Chairman Cho has also contributed immensely to the marketing area of the new wireless mobile communication service to the extent that his marketing model has become a success model in the world. He also played a key role in the introduction of the TTL product designed to make it customer-oriented by expanding customers'benefits and thus making the product more competitive.
The TTL was introduced in 1998 when Vice Chairman Cho became president under the segment marketing program, a new marketing program in the domestic mobile communication industry, which upgraded the level of the mobile communication service a notch.
In 1997, the mobile communication service industry suffered from an excessive competition with three PCS operators jumping into the race, causing a heavy financial burden to the operators. They cut the prices of terminals so steep that each of them had to incur great financial losses.
SK Telecom needed young subscribers, unable to get them due to its high rates and images, creating even a crisis feeling among its employees that the operator might have a bleak future. The company was in dire need of a new strategy to be able to woo young subscribers for its continued growth. nw

Vice Chairman Cho Jung-nam of SK Telecom